Juxtaposition and the use of na ‘and’
• When Hare goes to the field with the girl 17, this is very important because that is the place where
he succeeds in making her speak. •
Hare’s actions in 20b are important because they provoke the girl to speak. •
Finally, in 25c, aphano introduces the most important event of all, when the girl speaks. Some Bantu languages, such as Digo, Jita and Kwaya, do not appear to make use of TDMs. In those
languages which do have TDMs, they can take various forms, notably temporal connectives derived from locative demonstratives or locative relative markers, demonstratives referring to participants, and
relative clauses. The Ekoti TDM aphano ‘then’ is a temporal connective derived from a class 16 locative demonstrative. Similarly, in Kabwa, the class 16 proximal demonstrative hanu ‘here’ or ‘now’ seems to
function as a TDM, as it “introduces a new and important development in the plot of the story” Walker 2011:17. In Suba-Simbiti, two demonstrative forms bhoono ‘now’—a temporal connective and hano
‘when’—a subordinating conjunction both function as TDMs, occasionally in combination bhoono hano; however they do not function exclusively as TDMs, as both forms are found in the orientation and
denouement of some texts, and important developments in the peak episode are more likely to be indicated with the discourse marker mbe. This may indicate that bhoono and hano are intermediate
between TDMs and text-structuring connectives see §3.3 below. Similarly, in Bena the connective neke ‘then’ functions as both a TDM and to introduce events that are contingent on a previous event, and in
Malila the TDM takes the form of the class 16 relative pronoun pe, which also functions as a temporal connective usually glossed as ‘then’ Eaton 2015b:13.
In Fuliiru, important thematic developments are indicated by the use of distal or ‘remote’ demonstratives to refer to participants in the narrative, whilst new but less important developments are
indicated by referring to participants with proximal demonstratives. Proximal demonstratives are used to indicate relatively predictable developments, whereas distal demonstratives indicate critical
developments, and so perhaps only the distal demonstratives should be termed TDMs. For a detailed account of the functions of these demonstrative forms, see Van Otterloo 2015, §4.1 and 4.2.
Languages also differ in how frequently TDMs usually occur. For example, Fuliiru narratives may contain as many as twenty demonstratives functioning as TDMs, whereas in Tembo, which is closely
related to Fuliiru, demonstratives functioning as TDMs typically occur between one and four times in narratives of similar length. In Bena, neke occurs on average six times per narrative, but does not always
function as a TDM Eaton 2015a:16.
3 Connectives
The languages in this survey vary in terms of the variety of connectives used in narrative texts. Some languages, such as Digo and Suba-Simbiti, use a wide variety of connectives; in Suba-Simbiti nine
different connectives are found inter-sententially and five different connectives are found within sentences. Other languages use far fewer connectives; Bena and Malila use only five inter-sentential
connectives each, of which most occur infrequently.
Cognate connectives forms with the same or similar form which share a common etymology do not necessarily have the same functions. For example, in Bena neke ‘then’ introduces a main clause
whilst the class 16 relative pronoun pe ‘when, after’ introduces a temporal relative clause; however, in Malila the class 16 relative pronoun pe ‘then’ introduces a main clause whilst the class 14 relative
pronoun we ‘when, after’ introduces a temporal relative clause. In this paper, rather than discussing specific connectives in individual languages, I shall instead describe general patterns.